Today's PCs are filled with mind-bendingly complex bits of engineering. Processors with multiple cores pack millions of transistors onto excruciatingly sterile shreds of silicon smaller than the average postage stamp. As if that weren't impressive enough, those millions of transistors can flip bits billions of times per second-seemingly an entire world's worth of activity in just the blink of an eye. Chips get even more complex when we dive into the world of graphics, where transistor counts multiply and the number of effective cores working in tandem grows exponentially. Here, the cutting edge really does look and feel the part, and the results can be spectacular.
Not so much for power supplies. At least in terms of the components inside a modern PC, the power supply is relatively simple fare-mere electrical engineering in a world that bears an increasing resemblance to computer science fiction. Yet power supplies are so often done poorly. PSUs with sagging voltages or otherwise dirty power are commonly the root of system stability issues. What's more, they can effectively spread disease, taking other components with them as they spiral into an untimely demise.
Getting a power supply right shouldn't be hard; a good PSU needs only to be quiet, efficient, reliable, and deliver enough pristine voltage to satisfy a given wattage requirement. So which power supplies are the quietest and the most efficient? More importantly, whose power is the cleanest? To find out, we've pushed 11 enthusiast-oriented PSUs to their limits through a brutal gauntlet of tests. Read on for the results.